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Thursday, 17 April 2014

Direct
speech provides the exact words that someone says, has said or will say
in speech or writing.

In
print

Direct speech is indicated by being
enclosed in what is known as quotation marks:

reporting reported clause (direct speech)

clause

Sheba said, ‘They are making a lot
of noise.’

{Sheba said}

‘They are,’ {she said }, ‘making a lot of noise.’

{said
Sheba}

{Sabitha complained.

‘They are making a lot of
noise,’ {she complained.

{complained
Sabitha.

Here
‘said’ and ‘complained’ are the reporting verbs.

As
you can see, from the examples, the reporting clause may occur before, within
or after the direct speech. The subject-verb inversion, as you can see in the
second and third example, is most common when the verb is said and the
subject is not a pronoun. If the subject is a pronoun, the inversion (said she)
is unusual.

If
the reported clause has several sentences, it is usually positioned within in
the first sentence.

In
fiction, reporting clauses are often omitted when there is no doubt about the
identity of the speakers; quotation marks are sometimes omitted, too. These two
are regularly omitted in written plays, in formal meetings, and in some types
of headlines.

punctuation

Punctuation
marks help us see a sentence as direct speech:

· Quotation marks
are informally known as ‘quotes’ or ‘inverted commas’ <esp

BrE>

These are used at the beginning and
the end of direct speech.

These marks may be single ( ‘…’) or double ( “…”).

The second of these are more usual
in manuscripts, typed material and in

American writing; the first of
these are more usual in British printing. But the

ultimate choice lies with the
printing houses.

· When there is a
quotation within a quotation, if single quotation marks are used

for the first quotation, then
double quotation marks are used for the second or vice

versa:

‘Have you read the
article “Within the Circle”?’ he asked. <esp BrE)

“Have you red the
article ‘Within the Circle’?” he asked. <esp AmE)

· Other marks of
punctuation like commas and full stops (period) cooccur with

quotation marks; AmE always puts a
period or a comma inside the closing

quotation marks while BrE, outside
the quotation marks:

I enjoyed the article “Within
the Circle.” (AmE)

I enjoyed the article
‘Within the Circle’.
(BrE)

While I was reading the
article “Within the Circle,” my wife was cooking.

While I was reading the
article ‘Within the Circle’, my wife was cooking.

Note:
In some writing, a quotation extending over more than one paragraph will have

opening quotation marks, single or
double as the case may be, at the beginning of each

new paragraph and the closing marks
will occur only at the end of entire quotation.

Note also the use of commas and
period in writing a direct speech:

Sunitha said, ‘My
father’s on the phone.’

‘My mother is on the phone,’
said Sunitha.

‘My mother,’ said Sunitha,
‘is on the phone.’

Indirect speech

What
A says to B or what A says to himself/herself is direct speech; A is the
reporter and what he/she says is the reporting clause.

When
B says to C what A said to him/her it’s indirect speech; B is the reporter and
what he/she says is the reporting clause. A’s direct speech can also be put
into indirect speech.

Reporting Reported clause

clause

He said, ‘I’m learning French.’ ¬ direct speech

He said (that) he was learning
French. ¬ indirect speech

She said, ‘I’ll have nothing to do
with you* anymore.’ ¬ direct speech

She said (that) she would have
nothing with him* anymore. ¬indirect speech

I wondered, ‘Should I approach her
for help?’ ¬
direct speech

I wondered if I should approach her
for help. ¬ indirect speech

‘Will he do,’ I thought, ‘what I
say?’ ¬ direct speech

I asked myself if he would do what I said. ¬ indirect speech

Note:
*The ‘you’ is converted as ‘him’ but it could be converted to ‘her’, ‘them,
‘me’ or ‘us’, depending on

who ‘you’ refers to in the speaking
context.

Changes for
conversion

Reporting
a direct speech as indirect speech may involve changes in tense, pronoun, time,
place, demonstratives. I used ‘may’ because changes depend on the tense
of the reporting verb, the person reporting and the person to whom
the report is made.

Tense
forms

When
the time of direct speech and that of the indirect speech are different, that
is, when the reporting verb is in the past tense, the verbs in the quotation
are said to be ‘more past’ (because we are not talking at the same time as the
speaker was) then there is a need to change the tense forms of verbs (this
change is known as backshift, and the resulting changes in verb forms is known
as sequence of tenses).

About Me

I hail from Thamizh Nadu, a Southern state of India. I speak Thamizh, Thelugu, English and Hindi.

I served for 43 years as a teacher of English in schools and colleges in India, Ethiopia and Nigeria. I've published several articles on ELT and of general interest in the USA, Ethiopia and India. I've presented several papers in national and international conferences. I've written several course books for the English syllabuses of Bachelor of Engineering of Madras University, Anna University and JNTU, Hyderabad, for public consumption as well.